Coronary arterial dominance associated with congenital bicuspid aortic valve.

Gross examination was done of 186 hearts, principally from adults, for the nature of the aortic valve and the source of the posterior descending coronary artery (origin from the right coronary artery indicated as right dominance, origin from the left circumflex artery as left dominance). Exclusive of cases with coarctation of the aorta, the overall incidence of left coronary dominance in cases with congenital bicuspid aortic valves was 24.4%, while in cases with tricuspid aortic valves the incidence was 9.5%. There appears to be a greater tendency for left coronary arterial dominance in coarctation of the aorta than in the general population regardless of the type of the aortic valve.